Weekly Newsletter
Friday 17th March 2023
This week in school
STAR MAT pupil survey Years 4, 5 & 6 The STAR MAT are carrying out a pupil survey across all pupils from Y4 upwards. This is being done through an organisation called Edurio, and the survey was released this week via emails. All the schools have been asked to schedule time for this to be completed within the school day as this reduces some of the variables and will ensure consistency of approaches (there is a set of agreed communications). If you have seen this in your child's school email, it is legitimate and safe (it is fully anonymous) and does not need any action.
PE kit A reminder please that children should be wearing a plain white or royal blue T shirt and plain dark coloured hoodies...no logos, designer gear or football kits please. Thank you.
We have noticed this week that quite a few children have not had trainers to change into for PE: please make sure these are in school both for safety (a good grip) and to save a lot of cleaning!
Goodbye...to Mrs Tracy Turner who is leaving us for a new role with Network Rail. We will really miss her but look forward to catching up on her news when we see her at drop-off and pick-up times! We wish Tracy all the best in her new job.
...and Welcome to Mrs Roselyn Scoffin who will be joining us next week to work alongside Mr Warner in Galaxy class. Next week the children in Mars class will also be meeting their new teacher from Easter, Mrs Amy Beadnell-Bevan. Mrs Beadnell-Bevan will be visiting next Wednesday and again the following Monday before her official start date after Easter.
Parents' evening appointments Parents' evenings for this term will be on Wednesday 29 and Thursday 30 March. Following on from the autumn term, these will again be one date (29) for video calls and the other (30) for in-person appointments. Again like last time, teachers will be sharing the most recent reports from the assessments that are currently being carried out. We will be sending the booking links out next week.
Severe weather In the event of any unexpected school closures due to weather or utilities failure, we will let you know by a Teachers to Parents text and through Class Dojo.
Red Nose Day Friday 17th March Thankyou for supporting our Red Nose Day non uniform day. As we have moved to online payments for meals and visits, we are not accepting cash donations: we have moved with the times and have set up a JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/page/bryaton-primary-1678441099945?utm_source=copyLink&utm_medium=one_page&utm_content=page/bryaton-primary-1678441099945&utm_campaign=pfp-share&utm_term=2e5279824617405189c93dfc4133c922 This means that if you forget on the day, you can still make a donation quickly and easily on your phone, from home or work.
Governor vacancy: can you help? The STAR Multi-Academy Trust is a thriving community trust based in the Selby area, with 11 schools in both primary and secondary phases serving nearly 4500 students. Our mission is simple: to deliver an outstanding education for every young person such as they can flourish and achieve their full potential.
Now, more than ever, community schools and community Trusts such as STAR need the skills, insight and knowledge that governors from the wider community can bring.
The Governors at Brayton Church of England Primary School are looking to recruit a new member of their Governing Body and would be delighted to hear from our wider community, most especially those who may have backgrounds in finance, education, or HR.
Support and training for the role is provided: no experience of governance is needed
For more information please visit: https://web.starmat.uk/governance/governor-information/ or contact our Co-Chairs, Anna Pearce and Wendy Thompson, at cofg@bp.starmat.uk to arrange an informal discussion.
Please do share this information with family, friends and community contacts—unfortunately, the Board are unable to accept any applications from parents/carers but wider family members are welcome to contact us for more information
Contractors on site Work continues over the school site while we are (still) waiting for the new fencing delivery. Access around the site has been challenging at times and we are doing our best to manage this so thank you for being patient.
Term dates 2023-24 The term dates for the next school year are now on the school website at https://brayton-cofe-primary-school.secure-primarysite.net/term-dates/
Jewellery No necklaces, bracelets, rings or other jewellery should be worn to school. If your child has earrings, these must be removed for PE sessions, or earrings can be left at home on PE days. Earrings for school should be small stud types so they don't get caught and cause any injuries.
Free School Meals
Free school meals: save up to £450 a year With so much in the news about the cost of living and now energy prices going up, you can check whether your child could be eligible for a free school meal, whatever school year they are in. All the information is on the NYCC website at https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/free-school-meals Some of this information may be out of date, especially around eligibility, so please get in touch if you are unsure.
If you would like any advice or support with this, please contact the school office. We treat these matters with complete confidentiality and are always happy to help if needed.
Thank you for your continued support.
Allyson Buckton (Headteacher) & Mel Walmsley (Deputy Headteacher)
Whole School Attendance
We had a bit of a dip with attendance last week, reflecting the national picture too: in part due to the winter illnesses that are in circulation, so we would expect this to go up again for next week. We know that other local schools, particularly secondary, are struggling with attendance, so it is great for us to be in a positive place with this.
We monitor attendance regularly at individual level so that we can see where this is improving, which is a real positive. Because attendance is so important for learning and friendships, we monitor attendance every week so we can pick up any patterns and follow these up.
DIARY DATES
Wednesday 29 March - Parents' evening (video calls)
Thursday 30 March - Parents' evening (in person appointments)
Friday 31 March - School closes for Easter
Monday 17 April - School opens
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns this week to.....
Harrison Eames
Jack Stewart
Evie McKenzie
Teddy Deakin
Noah Ferguson
Zacaria Briggs
Samuel Collins
Jensen Woods
Eleanor Watson
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
This week we have been looking at plants and searching for signs of spring. We have read the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ and have even planted our own beans. We are very excited to watch them grow over the next few weeks. We have been planting seeds in the tuff tray, painting spring plants and acting out the story of Jack and the Beanstalk in the small world.
In phonics we have been listening to the initial sounds in words. We have collected objects with the same initial sound and found matching sound pairs. In maths we have been learning about number 4 and the shapes - square and rectangle.
We have also been busy practising our songs, making cards and baking for our special Mother’s Day Celebration. We hope all the Mums and special visitors enjoyed it!
Star of the Week - Mason Corbally
Reception - Moon and Mercury
This week we focussed on the story 'Somebody Swallowed Stanley' by Sarah Roberts and we talked about problems a simple plastic bag can create in the oceans and all the creatures that can be harmed. The children have spent so much time re-telling the story in our small world area and creating their own carrier bag creations. We also talked about the importance of recycling and looked at the different materials that we can recycle.
We have also spent lots of time thinking about our wonderful mummy’s! We are sure that you will all enjoy the amazing surprises that the children have created this week.
In maths we have been exploring 3D shapes - naming them and talking about their properties. The children all found lots of 3D shapes in the environment and also experimented with printing 3D shapes. This helped them to understand that their faces are made of 2D shapes. We also read ‘Pattern Fish’ and recreated our own repeating patterns.
As it is British Science week, we engaged in some science experiments. The children investigated what happens if you put drops of food colouring into oil. They were fascinated and used lots of interesting vocabulary to describe what they could see.
In R.E we have shared the story of Easter and its significance in the Christian calendar. The children created an Easter garden and discussed why each object was placed in it.
We hope that Mothering Sunday is a very special day.
Moon Star of the Week - Joshua Cockcroft
Mercury Star of the Week - Teddy Byrom
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
This week has been fantastic in Year 1. With it being Science week, we have focussed on ‘Pollution’ and have had a fantastic week looking at this through all aspects of work.
In English, we have looked at letter writing and have written a letter to the Prime Minister surrounding the problem pollution is causing to the planet. In Maths, we have carried on looking at ‘Weight and Volume’ and have focussed on how to measure each of these things. In Science, we have been focussed on Fish habitats and specifically the key things they need to survive. This has linked in beautifully with our weekly focus on pollution and the children have been brilliant with understanding the impact pollution has on our oceans. Music has seen us continue to look at composition and specifically using our voices and instruments to create an accompanying piece of music for the book ‘Flotsam’. In R.E., we have continued developing our understanding around the Christian celebration of Easter through drama and song.
Unfortunately, Year 1 will be saying a sad goodbye to Mrs Turner as she will be starting a new job elsewhere. Thank you very much for everything you have done for us, we will all miss you a lot.
Keep up the fantastic work Year 1, we are extremely proud of you all.
Stars of the Week
Galaxy-Ellis Lee
Venus- Alistair Howell
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
We have had another exciting week in Year 2 with a visit from Mrs Walmsley who showed us how the Great Fire of London started and spread quickly by lighting a real fire in the playground; her Forest Schools qualification comes in handy. The children had to try and put it out by passing little containers of water along a line just like the buckets of water would have been passed in 1666. It was really difficult to stop the fire. This enhancement brought our History, English and guided reading lessons to life. In the former, we compared the houses from before the Great Fire of London and those after London was rebuilt. We used our knowledge from DT and Science to discuss the properties of the materials used and the style of the houses. In the latter, we have continued to read and plan a diary of the events of 1666.
We used our Geography mapping skills to do orienteering in PE; we used our knowledge of compass points, symbols and a key to work in teams to find the map symbols in the playground.
As if all of this excitement wasn’t enough, we finished the week by celebrating Science Week with a full Science afternoon. We tested materials for their strength to see what would be suitable for a bucket for the Great Fire of London. For pure scientific pleasure, we went on to predict and test to see how many drops of water would fit on a 2 pence with surprising results especially when washing up liquid was added.
In Maths, we have been learning about measuring in millilitres and litres. We thought about how Christians live out the values Jesus showed in the Easter story in RE. These are values such as compassion, prayer and standing up for what is right. This linked to our PSHE where we learnt how to stand up to risk taking behaviour.
Keep up your enthusiastic learning Year 2.
Star of the week
Earth- Maisie Webster
Mars- Jack Riley
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
In English, we continued our learning about the key features of an explanation text, specifically ‘How does a Robot Dog Move?’, and how the content of each feature impacts the reader’s overall understanding. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience day on Friday where they stepped into the world of advertising, by creating their own robot dog food brand using puns, then pitching it to the class, just like in Dragon’s Den. Mass and Capacity is our new learning focus in maths; this week we recapped grams and kilograms and applied our recently learnt knowledge of how to work out the value of an interval on a number line or scale to read the mass of an object. In Science, Bones (our resident skeleton) made a welcome, and somewhat ‘humerus’ appearance, helping the children to learn the names of the key bones in our bodies in a fun and interactive way. The children also learnt that humans and animals with a backbone (vertebrae) are called vertebrates. In Computing, the children have made leaps and bounds in their 3D modelling creations on 3D Slash; this week building a chair and desk, along with typical office artefacts – we’re really impressed with their perseverance as the building process is quite intricate and requires plenty of concentration and attention to detail. We finished our week off with History, this time focusing on Romans as pioneering inventors of the past, and the positive impact their inventions had on society.
Stars of the week:
Saturn: Lewis Nicholson
Jupiter: Mason Snedker
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
We’ve had another great week in Year 4, in maths we’ve started our latest unit fractions. It’s offering us plenty of challenges but the children are really getting to grips with complex terminology and made a positive start.
In History, we continued to learn about Anglo-Saxons and explored how they would punish and deal with criminals. The children each had a scenario to consider and then discussed in groups if the suspect was guilty and if so, what would be their punishment. Should the accused loose a hand, face trial by ordeal or be put to death.
How could we possibly not mention our latest Scientific enquiries during Science week? We’ve continued to explore electricity by building ever more complex circuits including motors, buzzers and multiple cells. Quite a few children are challenging themselves to include the correct circuit symbols. In addition to our regularly planned lessons we also had the opportunity to practically explore magnetism, the children discovered how opposite poles of magnets attract each other and how they could magnetise steel as well as organising their own investigation to discover what qualities make a feather more air resistant which allowed the children to work Scientifically.
Star of the week
Meteor - Billy Carmody
Neptune - Agnes Heslop
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
It’s been a great week in Year 5 this week. From our English lessons last week, teachers have been reading finished narratives and checking off lots of skills evidenced within this piece of writing. Year 5 have begun work on their final writing genre of the half term, a newspaper report that will recount the events of our class text, Cosmic. In Guided Reading, we are finally getting close to the end and have discovered how Liam and the children ended up floating in space- it’s taken a while, but this really has been an enjoyable and humorous read for both classes this term. There’s been some excellent work this week in Maths, Mr Fash-Hill and Miss Goddard are impressed with the number of children accessing problem solving and reasoning on a daily basis. The learning on fractions, decimals and percentages will come to an end early next week and will continue to be revisited during FlashBack 4s and homework next half term. This week in Science, the children were given the opportunity to decide on and set up their own enquiry to the big question asked. As we are currently working on Forces, exploring simple machines, children were asked if they could lift a weight using only one finger! Children worked in small groups deciding how to use the equipment provided might enable them to answer the question. We will continue with British Science Week into next week as we finish off our Forces learning and try to spot the ‘connections’ between teeth and gears. Well done everyone on another good week.
Star of the week
Asteroid- Willow Wood
Pluto- Seb Draper
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
Year 6 this week have continued with their Ancient Egyptian themed writing, using their skills to create in depth instructions - instructions for how to prepare a Pharaoh for the afterlife through the process of mummification. In maths, we have concluded our ratio tasks, with great success, and moved to the sometimes troublesome topic of algebra. I say troublesome, but the children have shown just how capable they are of understanding quite complex processes during our sessions so far. Numbers on their own can be quite taxing, but adding letters in there too, can cause confusion. Well done everyone. In science we have continued with our circulatory system, concluding our ‘blood work’ by creating blood models to include all the many different cells that it contains. In RE we looked at the Easter story, with a focus of the sacrifices Jesus made to save humanity. Another good week in year 6 - it seems we have no other type! : )
Stars:
Nebular - Noah Pearce
Constellation - Jack Stewart